Latin America "long reads" from 2012

Here is a collection of “long-read” articles especially noteworthy in 2012. In addition to being engrossing reading, these all met the following criteria.

They are about Latin America and the Caribbean, and usually about security.

They are at least 3,000 words, thus qualifying them as “long reads” – often requiring more than one sitting to finish them, but not book length.

They are written in a clear, journalistic style – not academic prose.

As of today, all are available for free online.

They are written by authors other than staff of the three organizations that make up the “Just the Facts” project (CIP, LAWG and WOLA). Our organizations’ 2012 “long reads” are listed separately at the end of this post.

– Adam Isacson, WOLA

January 2012, Colombia: “Las FARC: La guerra que el país no quiere ver (Starts on page 36)”
Ariel Ávila
Arcanos (Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris, Colombia)
A look at how the FARC have adapted to the Colombian government’s 10-year-long offensive, arguing that they still remain “lethal to the Armed Forces and the civilian population.”

January 2012, Colombia: “Fighting the Last War ”
Elizabeth DickinsonThe Washington Monthly
“As president of Colombia, Álvaro Uribe triumphed over a fierce narco-insurgency. Then the U.S. helped to export his strategy to Mexico and throughout Latin America. Here’s why it’s not working.”

January 13, 2012, Ecuador: “Reversal of Fortune”
Patrick Radden KeefeThe New Yorker
A somewhat critical profile of Steven Donziger, the lead U.S. lawyer in a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against oil giant Chevron brought by Ecuadorian communities affected by severe pollution.

January 25, 2012, Peru: “The Devastating Costs of the Amazon Gold Rush”
Donovan WebsterSmithsonian
A likely future zone of social conflict is Madre de Dios state in Peru’s Amazon basin, where a bonanza of uncontrolled gold mining is devastating the environment.

May 1, 2012, Mexico: “The Deadliest Place in Mexico”
Melissa Del BosqueThe Texas Observer
A visit to the Juárez valley, east of Ciudad Juárez, which has been devastated by violent competition between the Juárez and Sinaloa cartels.

May 21, 2012, Cuba: “The Yankee Comandante”
David GrannThe New Yorker
A profile of William Morgan, an American who fought in Fidel Castro’s rebel army in the 1950s, only to be imprisoned and shot by a firing squad in 1961.

June 1, 2012, Mexico: “Cronica de la cartelizacion”
Natalia Mendoza RockwellNexos (Mexico)
A look at El Altar, Sonora, a staging area for drugs and migrants south of Arizona, where independent smugglers have fallen violently under the control of organized crime.

June 13, 2012, Mexico: “A Drug Family in the Winner’s Circle”
Ginger ThompsonThe New York Times
An investigation of how the Treviño family, part of the leadership of Mexico’s Zetas criminal organization, laundered money through horse-breeding in the United States. This episode, some speculate, may have fostered a violent split within the Zetas when the amount of money involved was revealed.

June 15, 2012, Mexico: “Cocaine Incorporated”
Patrick Radden KeefeThe New York Times Magazine
An exploration of what we know about the Sinaloa cartel and how it operates, both in Mexico and the United States.

June 25, 2012, Mexico: “The Kingpins”
William FinneganThe New Yorker
“‘Heating up the plaza’ is the term of art for what’s happening in Guadalajara, mainly in the poor barrios and in the badlands on the outskirts.”

June 28, 2012, Mexico: “The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal”
Katherine EbanFortune
If you want to know what really went wrong with “Fast and Furious,” read this. “The ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust.”

July 17, 2012, Peru: “Sendero Luminoso y el narcotrafico en el VRAE”
Romina Mella
IDL Reporteros (Peru)
First of an eight-part series exploring who the “narcos” are in today’s Peru, which appears to be surpassing Colombia as the world’s largest cocaine producer.

July 30, 2012, Mexico: “Armed with Impunity: Curbing Military Human Rights Abuses in Mexico”
Catherine Daly, Kimberly Heinle, and David A. Shirk
Trans-Border Institute, University of San Diego
The authors dig through the data about human rights complaints against Mexico’s military, which has been called to help fight crime, highlighting trends and calling for more determined action to bring abuses to justice.

August 29, 2012, Venezuela: “Venezuela’s private media wither under Chavez assault”
Monica Campbell
Committee To Protect Journalists
“The Chavez administration has used an array of legislation, threats, and regulatory measures to gradually break down Venezuela’s independent press while building up a state media empire.”

September 25, 2012, Colombia: “Colombia: Peace at Last?”
International Crisis Group
A thorough overview of why moderate optimism about Colombia’s FARC peace talks is warranted, and what the main actors need to do.

September 30, 2012, Entire Region: “The Mafia’s Shadow in the Americas: Modern Slavery and Refugees”InsightCrime.org, Animal Político (Mexico), Plaza Pública (Guatemala), El Faro (El Salvador), Verdad Abierta (Colombia)
A remarkable series about how organized crime groups are, for all intents and purposes, enslaving people throughout the region, whether through forced child recruits, sex trafficking, forced labor and other means.

October 12, 2012, Honduras: “U.S. Rethinks a Drug War After Deaths in Honduras”
Damien Cave and Ginger Thompson
The New York Times
A “series of fatal enforcement actions … quickly turned the antidrug cooperation, often promoted as a model of international teamwork, into a case study of what can go wrong.”

November 2, 2012, Brazil: “Rio: the fight for the favelas”
Misha Glenny
The Financial Times (UK)
A balanced look at the present state of Rio de Janeiro’s ambitious “favela pacification program.”

November 14, 2012, Mexico: “Mexico: Risking Life for Truth”
Alma GuillermoprietoThe New York Review Of Books
Mexican journalists facing threats – and worse – from organized crime, and getting no help from ineffective government institutions.

December 3, 2012, Colombia: “Delincuencia en Colombia: bandas desbandadas”Semana (Colombia)
A region-by-region overview of the new landscape of organized crime and narcotrafficking in Colombia, following the demobilization of paramilitaries and the takedowns of many successor groups’ leaders. A hint of what awaits Colombia even if talks with the FARC succeed.

December 7, 2012, Mexico: “The New Border: Illegal Immigration’s Shifting Frontier”
Sebastian Rotella
ProPublica
“Although Mexicans remain the largest group, U.S.-bound migrants today are increasingly likely to be young Central Americans fleeing violence as well as poverty, or migrants from remote locales such as India and Africa.”

December 11, 2012, Guatemala: “Los huesos que buscan su nombre”
Sebastian EscalonPlaza Pública (Guatemala)
Forensic anthropologists continue to uncover the horrors of Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil war, in order to provide evidence for the first prosecutions of military personnel.

December 16, 2012, Mexico: “The Zetas and Monterrey”
Steven DudleyInsightCrime.org
A 3-part series about the bloody battle for Mexico’s third-largest, and wealthiest, city. “How and why the Zetas settled in Monterrey goes a long way toward explaining who they are and how they operate.”